Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Walker
Iknow it’s not the smartest thing to do, asking Jessie to stay with me. There are many reasons why I’ve kept my distance from her over the years. But I’m desperate. I need her help. And I trust her.
She stands in front of me, arms wrapped loosely across her torso, biting the inside of her cheek as she considers what I’m asking. All I can do is stand and wait, hoping she agrees. Because if she doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“I’m not promising more than tonight.” She points her finger at me, but all I feel is relief.
At least I know I can make it through the night. Tomorrow is an entirely new beast.
“Thank you, Jessie,” I sigh.
She looks around my place. “So, what is it that you have?”
I point to the diaper bag. “That’s all—what is in there. Oh, and a stroller in the hallway.”
Her eyebrows rise. “That’s it? You can’t even make it through the night with that. We need to go to the store. Now.”
“Now? She just fell asleep. Where do I even put her to go shopping? Can I just carry her into the car? Is that safe?”
“Shit. No. She needs a car seat. Okay.” She takes a deep breath in and then lets it out. “I’m going to run to the store.”
She grabs her purse off of my counter.
“Ugh, you’re gonna just leave her here with me … alone?”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead.
“Seriously, Walker? You want my help? I’m helping. Yes, I’m going to leave you alone with your daughter for, like … an hour.”
I gulp down the mountain of anxiety that creeps in at the thought of being alone with her for an entire hour. “Okay. I’ll just … hold her like this, I guess.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do what you gotta do.”
She holds out her hand, as if I’m supposed to give her something. I raise my eyebrows in question.
“Credit card, dummy. I’m not paying for this shit.”
“Oh, right.” I turn around and stick out my butt. “Wallets in my pocket.”
She reaches in, and—I’m not gonna lie—the warmth of her hand on my ass is nice. Even in a moment of panic, my body reacts to her touch. It just proves that this is a stupid idea, being this close to her for an extended period of time.
“Which one?” she asks as she opens the wallet, apparently completely unaffected by touching me … there.
“Um … the black one right there.”
Another eye roll from her. “Of course you have a black Amex.”
What a surprise. A snarky, judgmental comment from the world’s most annoying woman. If she wasn’t saving my life right now, I’d have something to say back.
Instead, I watch her walk out of the door. I look around the silent penthouse, decorated with high-end furniture in every corner. It’s not a kid-friendly space. She sighs and wiggles in my arms, and I instantly freeze.
Please, don’t wake up. Please, don’t wake up.
Then she lets out a slow sigh and softens back in my arms.
Thank God.
I look around the room for somewhere to put her down to sleep. The only place that looks semi-comfortable is the couch, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.
I’ll just sit back down on the couch like we were before. Maybe if I keep her in my arms like this, she won’t wake up.
An hour later, my front door opens. I shoot off of the couch because, instantly, the noise startles the baby, and she starts wailing in my arms.
Jessie strolls in with a luggage cart from downstairs that’s filled to the top with boxes and bags.
“What the hell, Jessie? You woke her up by barging in like an animal.”
“Babies cry, Walker. Get used to it. It’s gonna happen … a lot.”
She struggles to get the cart over the wedge of my doorframe. No matter how hard she pulls, her effort is futile.
“Ugh, here, take her. I’ll get it.”
I hand her my baby, hoping she can figure out why she’s crying. While I pull the cart inside and start to unload all of the items into the family room, Jessie goes to the diaper bag and gets out a fresh diaper and wipes.
“Okay, Einstein. Come here.” She motions for me to follow her to the kitchen table.
She places some kind of mat down, then puts the baby on top.
“What?” I ask.
“You need to change her.” She points.
I know she’s not going to let me get away with not doing this. I might as well suck it up and get it over with. A terrible odor hits my nostrils.
“Eww, Jessie. I think you need stronger deodorant. You stink.”
She giggles next to me with delight. “I think that’s coming from her.”
My eyes bug open. “Did she …”
I can’t even say the words.
“Pretty sure she did. You did just feed her an hour ago.”
I look down at the baby, who seems a bit happier, placed on her back, but is still whining lightly.
“What’s her name?” Jessie asks.
“I haven’t a clue,” I state as I reach down to look at whatever contraption she’s in. “How do you get this thing off?”
Jessie walks me through the process as she rummages through the diaper bag. “She must’ve left something for you. I can’t believe you don’t even know her name. That’s messed up, Walker.”
I cringe at the stuff inside her diaper, breathing through my mouth the entire time. “What’s messed up is that a little thing like this can produce such a pile of grossness.”
“Aha!” she cheers. “Bingo.”
I toss the dirty diaper aside and place the fresh one underneath her, like Jessie told me to. Seriously, this is disgusting.
“What are you yapping about over there? I’m trying to focus.”
“Birth certificate. Social Security card, pediatrician information. It looks like her name is … Elise. Aww, that’s cute. Eli.” She bends down and kisses the baby’s nose. “You look like an Eli.”
Once she’s done and changed, I pick her up, and she starts to fuss and cry again.
“Now what?” I ask.
“Oh, I bought some pacifiers. Let’s see if that works.”
Jessie runs over to open a package and cleans the thing off in my sink. Meanwhile, I look down at her birth certificate.
Elise Harlow.
Amelia gave her my last name. Was she ever planning on keeping her?
“Here,” Jessie sings as she approaches.
She places it in Eli’s mouth, but she doesn’t seem to have any interest. Only Jessie doesn’t give up. She tries again, and it breaks through Eli’s screaming enough to get her to suck on it.
Miraculously, she starts viciously chomping on the pacifier.
“Also, I ordered dinner. I haven’t eaten yet, and if that continues … I’m going to get angrier and angrier,” she admits. “I got you something, just in case.”
“Thanks. I haven’t eaten yet, but I don’t have much of an appetite at the moment. I’m feeling kind of sick to my stomach, to be honest.”
She grabs a big box off of the cart and begins to open it. “Well, you should eat something. You’re gonna need your energy tonight.”
“What are you opening?”
“It’s a pack and play. It’s somewhere for her to sleep. It has a little bassinet on top and a changing station right next to it.”
What I think is going to take hours, instructions, tools, and a lot of fighting between the two of us takes Jessie minutes to put together.
“What in the world just happened? How did you get it together so quickly?”
“I know, right? I’m impressed with myself. Clearly, parents aren’t messing around with how easily they need this shit to come together.”
There are two little contraptions on top of the crib. I don’t understand what each one is for.
“What am I looking at here?” I ask as I stand over it.
“This one is where she sleeps, and this one”—she points to the one with a plastic bottom—“is where you change her.”
I lean down slowly and place her in the bassinet like she’s a bomb that could go off at the slightest movement. By some miracle, she doesn’t wake up. It’s probably all the crying she’s done. I’d be exhausted too.
As I stand next to Jessie, we both peer down at my daughter as she sleeps snuggly in her new bassinet.
I turn around and glance into a bag from the store. “So, what exactly did you buy? It looks like the entire store.”
“It’s not like you can’t afford it.” She joins me, hands on her hips.
I ignore the dig. “What do we need to get through the night?” I ask.
She goes straight for a box and opens it quietly. “First things first. This sound machine. It’ll drown out any noise that might startle her awake.”
I freeze in place. I don’t want that.
“Open it now,” I whisper, refusing to move until she puts in the batteries and dangles it off of the pack and play.
“Okay, I say, let’s get the changing station ready. Diapers, wipes, clean clothes. Then we can set up a bottle station for the middle-of-the-night feedings.”
My heart sinks. “Feedings? More than once? How often do babies eat?”
“A lot. And they poop a lot,” she says with a wink.
“You don’t have to enjoy my misery so much.” I push her arm as I open up the diaper box as quietly as possible.
She pushes me back—harder. “It’s much deserved, assface.”
“Why didn’t I just call Eva? She’d be a whole lot nicer to me.”
“Because you apparently have a heart, though it might be the size of a pea. She’s tired. I just talked to her this morning. Addie had them up most of the night.”
After we set up everything she thinks we’ll need for the night, the dinner she ordered arrives. We sit on opposite ends of the couch, eating quietly as we watch Eli sleep.
I can’t believe I’m already shortening her name, but I did like the sound of it when Jessie said it.
I’m lost in thought through most of dinner, trying to force down the contents of the food, though my body still feels like it’s stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
Like she knew I just finished dinner, Eli begins to cry. I throw my plate in the sink and make another bottle—instructed by Jessie, of course.
When I walk back into the room, Jessie has her changed into a small floral sleeper-looking thing. It’s cute with its footies. She has Eli cradled under her chin and is slowly bouncing her around the room.
My heart beats erratically in my chest at the sight of the woman I swore I could never have, soothing a baby I never knew existed until tonight.
She must sense my presence even though I haven’t made a noise, but she looks up and locks eyes with me. We don’t say anything, and I don’t move. I swallow down the feelings I’ve kept secret for years.
“I can take her,” I say through the thickness in my throat.
“No, I’ll feed her. Why don’t you move this pack and play in your bedroom while I do? She’ll need to sleep in the same room as you.”
I nod my head and do as I was told. I didn’t realize she needed to be in my room. I’m never gonna get any sleep tonight.
I walk back into the family room, where Jessie is now sitting on the couch, feeding Eli.
“You should get ready for bed now while she’s content,” she says to me without even looking up.
I roll my head around my shoulders, hoping that’ll relieve some of the mounting tension.
I don’t even know how to process all of this.
I went from spending the day with the possibility of scoring a case that would make me the most-sought-after corporate attorney in the city if I won to changing diapers and making bottles for a baby I hadn’t known about.
All with a woman who hates me—and who, I’m pretty sure, thinks I hate her.
If she only knew …